🌊 Public Beta Update 4: Tides & Locks 🚢

Ahoy captains! This is our biggest beta update so far. The sea now rises and falls, harbours move with it, and you can pass through locks. We've also improved ship handling, navigation, career and night visuals, and fixed a lot of bugs.

🌊 HIGHLIGHT: Real Tide System

• Tides worldwide. Water levels are calculated from the scientific EOT20 tide model, so high and low tide follow real-world patterns

• Tide info on the ship panel. You see the current tide level and where it's heading next

• Tides are saved. The tide state is restored correctly when you load a save

• Harbours that move with the tide:

  • Floating jetties and marina berths rise and fall with the water

  • Ferry docks have tide-adaptive linkspan ramps

  • Offshore destinations move with the tide level

  • Gameplay piers, marina piers and beach locations have taller piles (up to 10 m), so you can moor safely at any water level

  • Beacons have new 10 m concrete bases for tide changes

• Ladders on piers. Piers now have ladders, so you can climb up and down at low tide, with a new climbing animation. Interacting with a ladder takes you to the player's level, and large berths have climbable big ladders

• Smarter water handling. Your character uses the actual water height, so no more unwanted respawns. AI traffic boats adapt to different water levels too

🔒 HIGHLIGHT: Locks

• New lock system. Enter the chamber, wait for the water to level, and continue your voyage

• AI ships use locks too and pass through them properly

• Tug convoys are detected. Locks recognise a ship with its tugs as one convoy

• Lots of bug fixes and tuning on lock logic

🇬🇧 Dover & Folkestone

• Harbour basins in Dover and Folkestone dug out, so you can berth even at low tide

• Floating jetties with jetty fingers replace the old walkways in Dover, and marinas were adjusted to match

• Gangways on the floating jetties are now 18 m long

• Fixed wrongly scaled piers that made your character fall through

• New decoration: boat trailers with motorboats and yachts, plus large tree planters

🇩🇪 Rügen

• All big ferry ramps replaced with the new MK2 version, and wrong positions corrected

• Fixed a bug on the marina berth

🧭 Ship Handling & Physics

• New turning model. Turn performance now uses a target turning diameter and a max turn rate. No more unrealistically fast turns at low speed

• Small boats turn more realistically. Updated turn values for Yacht, Rescue Small, Rescue Big, Rescue MK2, Rescue Boat, Pilot, Coast Guard, Trawler Small/Medium and Raft

• Large-scale parameter tuning based on automated test loops against SOLAS requirements: crash stop, deceleration, rudder response, engine ramp-up and roll damping for many vessels (Glorious Queen, Bigwale, NorthStar, Seabound, Riptide, Deepwater, Bluefin, Seaborn and more)

• New rudder response curve for softer, more natural steering on vessels like the Whiteshark

• Better stop and crash-stop times for the Rescue Boat and Raft

• Realistic DWT and displacement values for all ships

• Tug max speed is now 12 kn

• Fenders have new collision shapes, so you can scrape along a pier without getting stuck

• Fixed: the training raft drifted sideways

• New water mask on the Rescue Small, so no more water inside the hull

📡 Navigation & Bridge

• Radar: every AIS target in range now shows as a boat icon, and the icon flashes red during a CPA warning. There's a new bearing line in North-Up mode

• Autopilot: deleting the last waypoint, or all waypoints, now disconnects the autopilot with an audio cue

• Docking message for container vessels: align the bridge with the dock markings

• New wiper clean function, and the double reflection on rainy glass is gone (for now only on Tidebreaker)

• Fixed:

  • Waypoints weren't created on the first map click (3D map and cockpit map)

  • GPS blinked on the HUD after switching to the auxiliary boat

  • Map tiles were missing on the cockpit map after closing the full map (M)

  • Cargo load didn't show on the ship panel after saving and loading

🎓 Career & Trainings

• 3 new missions for the next career level, with voice-over

• Anchoring 1 reworked: fixed anchor controls, plus new steps on anchor status (FLOAT / GROUND / SET), paying out chain and digging in astern, all with new voice-over

• New boatmaster licence ride

• Night navigation training now uses the pilot boat, and the fog training is easier to follow

• Career credits now scale with the ship's career level

• Fishing trawlers of different sizes now have different catch limits

• Level 4 trainings removed for now, the required-trainings check is fixed, and the ENI tutorial text is clearer

🌃 Night, Light & Visuals

• New harbour lighting: spotlights on harbour assets and street lamps, plus lit windows on harbour buildings at night

• Lights now switch on and off automatically at dusk and dawn

• Nights are a bit darker, and overcast days are a bit brighter

• Hot-air balloons now leave at dawn

• New seamark models

• Fixed:

  • Harbour light poles weren't visible

  • Ferry vehicles showed the wrong glass after loading or unloading

  • Big ferry dock ramps were misaligned and had a blocking edge collision

  • Ferry ramp and pier height adjustment didn't work correctly

🛠️ Editors

• You can now install and open the Mission Editor from the editor menu

🌐 Localization

• Cockpit labels now always show in English, so they display correctly in every language, including Chinese

Thank you for testing and for all your feedback! 💙 Keep it coming in our Discord.
Fair winds and following seas! ⚓